WHAT EVIL LURKS?

WHAT EVIL LURKS?

So, I’m making the bed this morning, just like I do every morning, and of course, I have the television on because (as we all know) I’m a television junkie.

I’m not even paying attention to the movie that’s on, when a commercial cuts in. It’s a commercial for a “thriller” – something about a village where there are some kind of evil spirits or something. It is obvious from the announcer’s tone of voice that it is meant to really scare you. Then about five minutes later there is another commercial. This is for yet another “thriller”. This is a Stephen King story, and it seems like it has something to do with a roller coaster gone haywire. The announcer (same announcer, I think) intones, “Death is coming!” I almost laughed out loud.

Now, you have to understand that I am not a brave person or a thrill-seeker. I’m quite the opposite. All my life I have avoided “scary movies” like the plague. Up until very recently, I wouldn’t even watch the trailers for them because I found them too disturbing.

I must admit there was one exception. When I was a little girl (back in the olden days) I used to watch “The Twilight Zone”. Rod Serling’s stories were not just scary, they were allegories that helped us to discern right from wrong and warned us of the consequences of human weakness. They were beautifully told, concise (because they had to conform to the half-hour format), well acted, well directed, and they scared the bijeezuz out of me. I loved “The Twilight Zone”, even though it gave me many a sleepless night. Maybe even because it gave me many a sleepless night. It seemed easier to worry about monsters in the closet than about the very real monsters I encountered every day at school. Maybe that is one of the reasons that such entertainment is so popular.

The most basic premise of “thrillers” and “horror” genres is that what we think we understand about our world, the laws of nature that we take for granted, may not always hold true. They scare us for the same reason that an earthquake scares us. Something happens that shouldn’t happen. This calls into question all of our neatly organized assumptions about the world, our metaphorical terra firma, which is no longer so “firma”.

I don’t know exactly why such ideas no longer scare me as they did for so many years. I am guessing it’s because I have finally come to see that the basic assumption I cradled in my bosom for so many years – that the world is a safe place – has finally been overwhelmed by a tsunami (you should pardon the expression) of evidence to the contrary. Between man-made disasters (like 9/11) and natural disasters (like the tsunamis), it is clear that all of us have one foot on a banana peel and one foot in the abyss.

Evil spirits? Absolutely. Death coming to get me? No question. Things not what they seem? You may rely upon it. There is something liberating about finally admitting to yourself that in fact, the bogyman is out there and there is not much, if anything, you can do about it. That frees you up to enjoy life. It may be that knowing we might get wiped out by a meteor some day just makes us appreciate our lives more.

So bring on the ghosts, the goblins, the vampires, the “undead” and the truly dead. Bring on the evil spirits, the malevolent roller coasters, the gigantic ants, and the killer birds. All of it pales in comparison to what’s really out there.

Life may not be safe, but in spite of all that, it is very sweet.

© 2005, Robin Munson

THURSDAYS WITH MOMMY

THURSDAYS WITH MOMMY

(with thanks and apologies to Mitch Albom)

I have a ritual. Every Thursday I wipe my schedule clean and spend the day with my mother. I’m very lucky that I don’t have a regular 9 to 5 job, so I can afford to do this – and I don’t necessarily advocate this for everyone. Some people would probably wind up on the front page of the newspaper if they tried to spend a block of several hours with their mother. There, I’m lucky, too. My mom and I have a wonderful relationship. We can talk for hours about everything and nothing. Yesterday we gave each other facials. We took her little dog, Mugsy, in the car and went out for a drive. We took a walk. You might say it’s nothing to write home about, and I guess it’s not. But all the same, I wouldn’t trade that day for anything.

“Anything?” I can hear you asking yourself. Well, I’ve turned down many an appointment. Anyone who knows me knows that Thursdays are my day with Mom. They know I won’t schedule anything. On rare occasion, I have asked Mom if I could switch our day to Friday so that I could make a doctor’s appointment. A couple of times I had to be out of town on a Thursday. That’s it. I consider my Thursdays with Mom sacred. It’s not too strong a word.

Four and a half years ago, when I lost my father, I realized that he and I had not had very much time together. Partly it was because it was hard to talk to my father. He was one of those distant, preoccupied fathers who seemed to be embarrassed by small talk with his kids. He often resorted to platitudes. He found excuses to be elsewhere when a conversation threatened to break through the surface to a deeper level. And when we talked politics, it was a disaster. He thought I was an addle-brained liberal. I thought he was a hopeless reactionary. (In other words, we had a father-daughter relationship that was fairly typical of the times).

When I moved away from Pittsburgh to go to college in Boston, I moved away for good. Nobody really planned it that way, but that’s how it turned out. After I graduated school and was a married woman, I moved to Virginia for a few years, then to New Mexico, then to New York, and finally to California, with a six year interim in Tennessee. So for the last thirty-two years of my father’s life, I lived in another city. I came back to Pittsburgh for occasional visits, usually on holidays or for my father’s birthday. I would stay for three or four days and apart from once-weekly telephone conversations, that was the extent of my time with my father.

When Daddy was given the news that he probably had less than six months to live – he had lung cancer – I decided to take a trip to Pittsburgh to spend some time with him. I was there for about a week. For the first time in my adult life, I got to sit down with my father and we discussed what was in our hearts. Daddy told me that he was sad that he could not leave his kids all that he had hoped he would. I told him that he had given me everything that mattered; he had given me a healthy sense of humor and a sense of right and wrong. He had given me an appreciation of good music. He had taught me about integrity and how to mix a martini. He taught me about courage. He taught me about myself. When I told him all this I was afraid it would be too little to late, and I was afraid he wouldn’t be able to take it in. Amazingly, though, he seemed to truly listen. He seemed to not only take in my words, but to gain some peace of mind from them. And I thought how sad it was that we had not availed ourselves of the opportunity to talk like this much more often. We could have been such good friends.

In the same year that Daddy died, I was faced with a cancer diagnosis. Art and I made the decision to move back to California from Tennessee so that we could be near my family. It was the best decision we ever made. Not only would it be good for me as I made my recovery, but it would be good for my mother whose health has been less than perfect for a long time.

So I’m determined that, no matter what else may happen between me and my mom, we will never have to sigh and ask ourselves why we didn’t take the time to get to know one another. We are becoming closer with every passing week. It gives us both a sense of connection and a feeling that there is something in this world we can rely on. Something that we can look forward to. And honestly, I do look forward to my Thursdays with Mommy. How many 54 year-olds can cry on their mothers’ shoulder when the chips are down? I feel very blessed.

© 2004 Robin Munson

ME & GEORGE BURNS

(Author’s Note: Just for the record – This is fiction. RM).

It happened so quickly, I didn’t have time to be scared. I remember that I was pulling into the next lane. I had my left turn signal on, and I glanced back over my shoulder to make sure the coast was clear. I must have been going about 65, which was actually a little slow for the 405 that day. But when I turned back around, the truck in front of me had stopped. All I saw was red tail lights. Then black.

Next thing I know, I’m in the ER at Cedars. I see lots of little kids. One with her head in her mother’s lap, and the mother was stroking her head, ever so gently, with that fifty-yard stare. Then I saw me. It felt like I was on the other side of the room and I recognized my hair. The rest was harder to make out. I was a mess. I saw lots of activities around my guerney. Someone pulled out the paddles and yelled “Clear!”, just like they do on TV. They were pounding on me for a long time. Then someone pulled a sheet up over my head and wheeled me away. But – Wait a minute! They couldn’t have wheeled me away because I was still in the room, checking out everyone else. Then I realized what had happened.

There was no tunnel. There was no bright light. Nobody called my name or waved to me. It was very disappointing, to tell you the truth. But not a bad sensation, just floating. You know that feeling you get when you’re falling asleep and you’re about half-way there? It used to happen to me all the time. Then images began.

Now I was in a steam room. I mean it. A schvitz. Like the old Jewish men used to visit once a week. All tiled in black and white. Hot as hell. (Just a figure of speech). In fact, I heard my grandfather, Mair, was very fond of the schvitz. He took my father there as a rite of passage. It was probably more important than a bar mitzvah. Now, this is funny because I’ve never been in a schvitz in my life, so now that I’m being inducted into my own personal heaven, why a schvitz?

Pretty soon, the heavy steel door opened, and in walks, well, George Burns. As in “Burn and Allen”. As in the movie, “Oh, God”, and the sequels. There he was, wrapped in a big white towel, a cigar hanging out of his mouth. He took the cigar out and said, “Hiya, kid!”. I was stunned.

“Are you God?”

“Sure”.

“But – Why do You look like George Burns? As a matter of fact, you sound like George Burns.”

“Isn’t that what you expected?” A little sly smile played on the corner of his mouth.

“Well, I guess so, but I always imagined that that was just my immature spirituality and that You would enlighten me later on”.

“Your spirituality is fine. Listen, I don’t really have an image that you could recognize, so I do it on a case-by-case basis. You expected George Burns. Moses expected a burning bush. Get it?”

“Okay, yeah, I think I do. Do I get to ask questions?”

“You just did. Go ahead. Fire away.”

“Am I – um – dead?”

“Your old body is vacant, if that’s what you mean. It’s ready for the recycling bin.”

“The ‘recycling bin’?”

“Oh, sure. Nothing goes to waste, I promise you.”

“So – How are we having this discussion?”

“Well, just because your old body is sent back to the earth doesn’t mean your soul is scrapped, too! You’re a good soul. Sturdy. Indestructible, actually. You’ve heard the expression “immortal soul”?

“Yeah, but I never took it very literally.”

“Well, that’s understandable. Most people get confused by the body and think that’s the whole deal. Very common misunderstanding.”

“Well, so. How did I do?”

“You done good, kid. I’m proud of you”.

“Really?”

”Yeah. You did your best. You learned from your mistakes. And you were really good at loving.”

“Yeah, but I mean. I never did figure out why I was here, I mean, there. You know, I wasn’t a big success at anything. I never got that hit record.”

“You mean, you weren’t famous or wealthy?”

“At the risk of sounding shallow, yes.”

“I’ll let you in on a little secret. Hit records never impressed me. Neither does fame. And wealth, well, you know. In and of itself wealth has no value. Can even be a problem.”

“But – I don’t know what my Purpose was. Can you explain that?”

“I don’t make up your Purpose. You do! That’s free will. One of my finest inventions, if I do say so Myself.”

“No predestiny?”

“No. How do you think I amuse myself? I’d be bored if I could predict your every move, much less control it. So now I’ll ask the question. What was the purpose of your life?”

“Ummm. I was a good daughter, a good friend, a good sister. . . I guess.”

“Don’t you know?”

“Yes. I was.”

“Very good, kid. So, what’s the purpose of being a good daughter, a good friend, a good sister?”

“Is there a purpose?”

”Sure. An important one. See, it’s all about connection. The biggest misery is to feel isolated, alone. The greatest joy is to feel connected.”

“So by making people feel connected, I contributed to their joy?”

“You’re a quick study. More tomorrow. I’m an old man. I’m tired”.

“Where are you going?”

“Nowhere. Everywhere. Don’t worry kid. Just because you can’t see me doesn’t mean I don’t exist. I’m as near as your own heartbeat”.

“Oh.”

He left by the door, which I thought was very sensitive. I was new to all this, and He was trying not to shock me.

© 2004 Robin Munson

NATASHA

You may not want to hear from me today. My head is muddled. I have so much on my mind that there is almost too much to write.

Yesterday morning we lost our dear, sweet little Natasha. Our angel girl kitty. For anyone who has ever been through it, no words are necessary to describe our grief. For those of you who have not, no words are sufficient.

I miss her every time I look at our bed. Our bed was Natasha’s domain. She spent every possible moment holding court there. Sleeping there. Dreaming there. Cuddling with us. Banishing her little brother, Henry. When I was sick or discouraged, she was “Nurse Natty”. She would just appear and come to wherever I was. She would sit on me and purr endlessly until either she or I had to get up. She had magical healing powers when she did that. Natasha was regally beautiful. She commanded respect. She had her own kind of intelligence. She could be very funny. When Art came in to the bedroom, she would flirt with him, rubbing up against him, nuzzling him. Then she would flop down on the bed. Art would say, “Come on, Natty. Show us what the girls in Hollywood do!”. And Natty, on cue, would roll over on her back, paws splayed, showing off her perfect white tummy for all the world to see. God, we would laugh so hard. And I think she was laughing with us.

Many times I dreamt that Natasha could speak English. I would dream that she was standing at our back door, yowling to go out. I would hear, “Meow! Meow! Meow!”, and I would stand there, helpless. Wondering why she was crying. And she would say, “MEOW! MEOW! ME! OUT!!! What’s the matter with you? Don’t you speak English?”. I am convinced that she understood every word we said. Of course, we struggled for the most rudimentary understanding of her feline language. I’m sure it was a constant source of amusement to her. Stupid humans.

For fourteen wonderful years, Natasha graced our home. She enriched our lives. She was our friend, our child, our guardian angel, our baby girl. I hope with all my heart that she is, not only finally cured of that nasty cancer, not only out of pain, but triumphant, soaring, blissful, at peace. Finally, our delicate little one is in perfect health. I envision her in a place where every iota of her beauty, her generosity of spirit, her sweetness, her grace, is reflected back through a Benevolent Being. I would like her to be in a world where she has access to unlimited catnip, beautiful birds that she can chase down who magically resurrect themselves for the next chase, endless warm summer sun baths. Perhaps she is playing with Charlie, our partly feral grey and white kitty with whom Natasha was raised. (They were polar opposites in personality, but they loved each other). I see her surrounded by her littermates and her Cat Mother/Father. I see her in fields of sweet fragrant flowers that tickle her nose, and a protective mantle of love that enfolds her and protects her for eternity.

And Art and I will join her there some day. We will all be happily reunited. And finally, we will all speak the same language.